ANOTHER SAD STORY – RED KURDISTAN
By Nizameddin Rzayev
KurdishMedia.com
Kurdish Media, UK
June 5 2006
As a Kurd born in Red Kurdistan, the Kurdish area tucked away between
Armenia and Azerbaijan and speaking very little Kurdish, ever since
my childhood I became aware of our certain cultural differences from
the rest of people-Azeris and Armenians around us. Although, I grew
up speaking Azerbaijani, a branch of Turkic languages and some broken
Russian, we still had a lot of strange-sounding, different words in
our everyday language which were not used by Azeris. Afterwards I
found out that these words were borrowed from Kurmanci which was our
original language before being assimilated into speaking Azerbaijani.
Some of the oldest community members were still able to speak Kurdish
but since they belonged to the past that Soviet citizens had to
dispense with in order to absorb “progressive” cosmopolitan communist
ideals, they were in no position to pass on our cultural heritage and
native language to us. Later my Mom told me that whenever her father
and aunt did not want the children and outsiders to understand what
they were talking about they switched from Azeri to Kurdish. All this
knowledge further inflamed my insatiable, childish curiosity to delve
into the mysterious past of my small part of Greater Kurdistan.
When we went to other parts of Azerbaijan and Armenia the locals
called us Kurds or “Mountaineers” interchangeably. They sometimes
sympathetically made fun of us because of our strict adherence to
honor, self restraint and pride. For instance, we would seldom go to
police or court if two people had any personal differences, viewing it
a less manly means. There would always be older, respected member of
our community there mediating to settle any problem. We could speak
Azerbaijani fluently but with a distinct accent peculiar to only
Kurds. We were on good terms with both Azeris and Armenians until the
Karabax war threw us on the same side of battle with Azerbaijanis as
their fellow citizens against Armenians.
Armenians evidently made no distinction between Moslem Kurds and Azeris
when they captured all districts one by one that made up former Red
Kurdistan adjacent to Nagorno Karabax. The irony was that Yezidi
Kurds living in Armenia were fiercest Armenian soldiers fighting
against their own brethren in Lachin and Kelbajar.
When I come to think about it, I tend to believe that the very same
religious affinity with Azerbaijanis had been a big facilitating
factor in the linguistic assimilation and loss of national identity
of so many Kurds over the decades.
I had so many questions yearning for answer in my head about our
Kurdish roots and history that I always bombarded my grandfather
who could speak a broken Kurdish and other older people with my
never-ending questions. But I was always disappointed not to find
any reliable source exploring our national saga partly because any
form of asserting national identity under Soviet Union was strongly
discouraged and partly because most of the people in this part of
Kurdistan had lost their history. The assimilation policy ruthlessly
pursued against Kurds by the central government of Soviet Azerbaijan
and isolation from their brethren in the “mainland” Kurdistan had
done irreparable damage to Kurdish culture and language.
There were two theories voiced by elders as to the history of our
community, one being that our grandfathers were moved as a part of 24
Kurdish tribes by Shah Abbas of Iran in 16th century from different
parts of Irani Kurdistan and Xorasan to the Caucasus to fortify the
borders of Safavids against Ottomans. But my grandfather claimed
that we had come to the Caucasus from modern-day Southern Kurdistan
(around modern Mosul, Kirkuk cities) 300 years before since our tribes
(Ferihkhani) was one of the recalcitrant Kurdish tribes refusing to
pay taxes to Ottomans. Thus, our true history was lost in the clouds
of history and ruthless fate that befell Kurds in all the parts of
our rightful homeland. Later I found out that Kurds had lived in the
Caucasus since time immemorial, establishing strong Kurdish dynasties
like Sheddadites, Revvadites that ruled big parts of modern-day
Azerbaijan in 9th -13th centuries. Thus, there had always been Kurds
in Red Kurdistan and other parts of Azerbaijan such as Nakhchevan
before we came to settle in these beautiful, picturesque lands.
Kurds had left their indelible imprint on the folklore, music,
literature and history of Azerbaijan. Old Mugams such as Kurd-Ovshari,
Bayati-Kurd, Kurd-Shahnaz are still considered to be the best
examples of classic music in modern-day Azerbaijan. In a famous epoch
“Koroglu”, the bravery of “Kurdoglu” (Kurd’s son) against feudal
pashas and landowners in redressing their injustices towards the
poor and dispossessed is so exulted and praised. The world-famous
classic of Azerbaijan literature Nizami Gencevi (1141-1209) devoted
his famous poem “Xeyir and Sher” to the good deeds and virtues of
a Kurdish girl and her rich farther, praising in so many words her
beauty, compassion, generosity towards the helpless “Xeyir” by saving
him from hunger and death.
During the heydays of perestroika launched by the last head of
former Soviet Union, Gorbachov, there was a renewed interest in
Kurdish culture and language. Late Shamil Askerov, a poet, tireless
researcher and scholar on Kurdology born in Kelbajar were able to
introduce Kurdish language classes in some Kurdish village schools. I
remember how proud little Kurdish boys and girls were of new Kurdish
words and phrases they had learned in school in my village called
Zeylik. Unfortunately those good days were short-lived when the bloody
Karabax war put an end to this initiative by dispersing all the Kurds
around different corners of Azerbaijan.
Kurds lived in Red Kurdistan made up of four administrative
units-Kelbajar, Lachin, Gubadly, Zengilan and part of Jebrail
until 1993 when a long lasting bloody conflict between Azerbaijan
and Armenia over Nagorno Karabax drove all the Kurds out of their
ancestral homeland. The founding and abolishment of Red Kurdistan is
somewhat shrouded in mystery.
The tale related by our elders had it that Lenin personally gave the
order to establish the Red Kurdistan. Nevertheless, there are certain
facts that shed some light on the real story of this first-ever
Kurdish Autonomy in modern history. Red Kurdistan was officially
set up on July 7, 1923 by the decision of a Special Committee (The
official Russian name was Kurdistanski Uezd), confirmed on July17
by the Executive Board of the Committee headed by S. Kirov, a high
Bolshevik functionary. But the degree of autonomy granted on us paled
in comparison to that of neighboring ethnic Armenians in Nagorno
Garabax Autonomous Province. Kurdistanski Uezd was dissolved on April
8, 1929 after the Sixth Azerbaijani Congress of Soviets authorized
the structural reshuffling of the administrative units.
Again on May 30, 1930 Central Executive Committee of Azerbaijan
made the decision to establish Kurdistanski Okrug, Lachin chosen
as its capital which also included other Kurdish districts-Zengilan
and part of Jebrail rayonys (districts) that had been left out when
Kurdistanski Uezd was created. But the Okrug only existed 2 and half
months before the Central Executive Committee of Soviets and Council
of People’s Commissar liquidated the Kurdistani Okrug on July 23,
1930. Interestingly, liquidation sidestepped the neighboring Nagorno
Karabax Autonomous Province mostly because of the influence and strong
resistance of Armenian communists in Moscow and Baku.
The role of nationalist Azeri beauracrats in this unjust decision
for Kurds was probably substantial since there they had all the
interest in the total assimilation of Azerbaijani Kurds and did
not face any strong resistance from the mostly uneducated Kurdish
Communities. By that time almost half the Kurds (mostly young
generation) in this autonomous province had been assimilated into
substituting widely-spoken Azerbaijani for their native Kurdish. The
different official sources put the size of Kurdish population in Red
Kurdistan at 60.000 after the October Revolution (1917) excluding
the sizable Kurdish communities in Nakhchevan and other parts of
Azerbaijan. To make matters worse, the official census taken in 1921
manipulated the real number of the Kurds by reclassifying those who
did not speak Kurdish as a first language as “Azerbaijanis”. It is
not surprising since Baku had no interest in the revival of Kurdish
culture and national awareness among the young generation.
During this short-lived relative autonomy and a short period afterwards
there were several government-sponsored expeditions led by V. Susoev,
Chursin, orientalist V. Gurko, Kriyazhin, into the region to study
the language, culture of the highlander Kurds.
Several articles on the Kurds of Soviet Azerbaijan were published in a
communist newspaper “Zariya Vostoka” as a result of these expeditions.
Conference on national minorities was held in Baku in June 1931.
Soviet author A Bukhspan published a very useful detailed booklet
on the Kurds of Azerbaijan, traveling to lots of Kurdish villages
and settlements in Kelbajar, Lachin and Nakchevan after the Moscow
reproved Baku for its neglectful and chauvinistic policy towards the
Kurdish minority. Around 30 Kurdish books were published in Azerbaijan
between 1930 and 1938 despite the red tape and purposeful neglect
by official Baku. Red Kurdistanis were briefly able to take Kurdish
summer classes in 1931; the same year the newspaper “Soviet Kurdistan”
was founded in Lachin; Kurdish Department was established at Shusha
Pedagogical College In 1932 where my late grandfather, Jafar Ahmedov
was sent as a teacher. For many years to come he would be deeply
involved in the education of mountainous communities of Kelbajar and
Lachin. His leadership and commitment to spreading education among
the Kurdish villagers earned him a Lenin Order, one of the highest
awards of Soviet Union.
This relative revival of Kurdish national awareness was cut short by
Stalin’s notorious 1937- 1938 repression that was implemented with
unheard of brutality by Mirrcefer Bagirov, the communist leader of
Soviet Azerbaijan. The repression resulted in the closing of all
Kurdish language schools and publication. Thousands of Kurds from
Nakhchivan and Red Kurdistan were deported to Central Asian republics
-Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, and Turkmenistan. My grandfather’s family
was one of these unfortunate Kurdish families who were deprived of
all their possessions and property, declared the “enemy of people”
because of their former landowner’s status, and exiled under inhuman
conditions to Central Asia.
Later, some but not all of these families made it back to their
homeland after this nightmare period was over. Unsurprisingly, most
of the Kurds in Central Asia nowadays are the descendents of those
Kurdish families deported from Armenia, Azerbaijan and Georgia during
the repression years.
The deplorable situation for Kurdish culture and self-awareness did not
change much even after the repression was eased with Stalin’s death.
Nevertheless, there were sporadic expeditions and published work by
Russian kurdologists such as T. Aristova (1957), K. Kromov(1961) Ch.
Bakaev(1960), a Yezidi Kurd by background, that dealt with the dialect
and culture of Azerbaijani Kurds despite obstructions of Baku.
Bakhaev found out the presence of considerable concentration of
Kurdish communities in other parts of Azerbaijan such as Xachmaz,
Ismayilli, Yevlax. He also noted that Kurdish language fluency had
remarkably deteriorated among the Azerbaijani Kurds, particularly
among the young generation, Nakhchevani Kurds being an exception.
Their studies provide some useful but not convincing information on
the size of Kurdish population and Kurdish settlements in the country
since they extensively relied on official census data.
The policy of wiping out all the traces of Kurdish culture is
confirmed by the official census taken in 1959, 1970, 1979, and 1989
in Soviet Azerbaijan which manipulated the size of Kurdish minority
of Azerbaijan to a greater extent by reclassifying most of the Kurds
as “Azerbaijani”. The result was ridiculously low statistic for the
size of Kurdish population in the country: 1,487 Kurds in 1959, 5,
488 Kurds in 1970, 5,676 Kurds in 1979, 12,226 Kurds in 1989.
Besides, all the other new settlements in Red Kurdistan that had
brunched out from the older Kurdish villages were reclassified
as Azerbaijani villages purely because of the fact that the young
brainwashed inhabitants in these settlements used Azerbaijani as their
first language. (The widely-accepted consensus today is that there are
at least 500,000 Kurds in Azerbaijan, a country of 8 million, excluding
those who have been completely assimilated whereas the official data
only admits the presence of 13-14 thousand Kurds in Azerbaijan)
The biggest disaster was still ahead for Red Kurdistan. The
Upper Karabakh War Btween Armenia and Azerbaijan broke out
in 1988 after the Armenian nationalists of Nagorno Karabakh
and Armenia demanded separation of this autonomous province
from Azerbaijan. The long-lasting conflict(1988-1995) had dire
consequences for the population of Red Kurdistan: All the Kurdish
settlements and districts were occupied by Armenian forces with the
military support of Russia. The fierce rivalry for power in Baku
and consequent confrontation between the different factions of
unorganized National Army rendered Azerbaijani troops completely
unable to defend the territories of the Republic, losing all
the districts of Red Kurdistan – Lachin (1992), Kelbajar(1993),
Zengilan(1993), Gubadli(1993),Cebrayil(1993) to Armenian forces
without any resistance. As a result, the inhabitants of this former
Kurdish Autonomy were driven out of their homelands and scattered
around different parts of Azerbaijan.
Most of the displaced Kurdish population still lives in refugee tents
and temporary settlements under harsh circumstances, waiting to turn
back to their native homelands for over 13 years. The negotiations
between Azerbaijan and Armenia to find a peaceful solution for
resolving the conflict has produced no results so far. The Kurdish
Cultural Center -“Ronayi”, is virtually unable to promote the Kurdish
culture and language among the young assimilated Kurds because of lack
of funding and watchful eye of government with evident pressure from
Turkey. The dispersal of the Kurdish communities around the different
corners of the country further complicates the task of putting up
a common front to save our culture and language from the verge of
extinction. However, a lot can be done to help revive the Kurdish
culture in Azerbaijan by working towards practical goals such as
opening Kurdish language courses and schools, providing the material
to teach Kurdish, sending the young Kurds of Azerbaijan to study in
cities like Suleymani, Hawler of Southern Kurdistan. In this respect,
the Kurdish Diaspora in Europe, Kurdistan Regional Government and
higher Kurdish officials of Iraq today can play an important role in
improving the lot of these communities and facilitating the revival
of our cultural heritage on the brink of extinction.